


You've Got Nothing (But Time)

by sweeterthankarma



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, Hopeful angst, Mentions of Canon Minor Character Death(s), post season 2 i guess?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-10
Updated: 2019-01-10
Packaged: 2019-10-08 04:13:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17379329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweeterthankarma/pseuds/sweeterthankarma
Summary: Despite everything, sometimes— just sometimes— life is good for her. For her sister, for Dolls, for Nicole and Jeremy, whatever force in the clouds that rains constant misery on them decides to cease fire and take a day off. They cherish those infrequent moments of quiet and peace as much as they possibly can, when they’re not grueling through cases and trudging through tragedy. They always seem to be trudging.





	You've Got Nothing (But Time)

**Author's Note:**

> Originally planned for this to be a 500 words or less piece, but I love my character introspections and musings and so this little fic got a bit out of hand for me. It's always therapeutic for me to explore Wynonna's mind, but I tried to keep this as general as I could. It's set in the universe I wish the show was in; everything is the same but Dolls is alive and it's disregarding some plot holes/story lines I didn't particularly love in season three, so it's essentially post season two. 
> 
> Title comes from one of my favorite songs to listen to when writing, "You've Got Nothing (But Time)" by less.people. I wasn't listening to it while writing this particular piece, but when I was searching for a title it was the first to come to my mind and just felt like it fit.

Time goes by so fast, Wynonna feels like she’s in a constant state of jetlag. Weeks pass in a haze, days feel like centuries, and she never stops reeling, not completely, whether it’s from grief or anger or accomplishment or love. 

(The love part is a bit of a surprise.) 

Despite everything, sometimes— just  _ sometimes— _ life is good for her. For her sister, for Dolls, for Nicole and Jeremy, whatever force in the clouds that rains constant misery on them decides to cease fire and take a day off. They cherish those infrequent moments of quiet and peace as much as they possibly can, when they’re not grueling through cases and trudging through tragedy. They always seem to be trudging.

They’re getting somewhere with the revenants, though— well, Wynonna is, but she couldn’t do it without all of them and she’s long past the point of thinking she can. It’s strange to not be lonely anymore, at least not like she used to be, and it’s strange to be making progress like this, even if it isn’t always linear.

Also, she’s in love. She’s never been in love before.

Dolls will come to her bed in the evening, even if he goes back to his hotel room to grab some files to examine, and he’ll slip beside her like it’s the most natural thing in the world. (For them, maybe it’s becoming just that.) Xavier is warm and solid and faithful, and it’s more than Wynonna has ever expected, especially from someone as impossibly reserved as him. She’s guarded too, well aware of her own incessant solidarity tendencies and oftentimes using them as punch lines to her own brisk, self-deprecating jokes, but now she may need to change her script. Both she and Dolls are something much more, together and apart, than they used to be.

She’ll curve into his side, feel his skin against hers, the luxury of her lips on her mouth, and she’ll breathe for maybe the first time all day. She relishes the relief, as infrequent and faint as it is; Wynonna knows Dolls won’t sleep for long. He’ll wake up early in the morning, toss and turn and struggle to sleep again, and in time he’ll give up, flick on the desk light and start studying his paperwork again. She knows this because she can’t sleep much lately, either, and if she doesn’t join him in his analyzations, she’ll lay there and think just as hard as if she was.  

Even when she’s happier than she’s ever been, with Waverly safe down the hall with her own love, with Bobo and Willa and the Widows gone, Wynonna knows she can never truly relax until the curse is broken.   
Time is bending all around them, but here, it stays constant. 

It’s strange for all of them, this weird kind of slow motion trip through their own timeline. They all feel it, especially when the nighttime rolls around and the clock flips from PM to AM only to go back to darkness soon enough. Waverly and Nicole share monthly anniversaries and the scene feels warped, like the current moment, day they shared their first kiss, and the day they first met are all intertwined somehow. They struggle to celebrate, to light candles on cakes for birthdays and raise drinks in cheers because Waverly remembers life without Nicole as clearly as she imagines a future with her in it. She remembers Daddy’s death and Willa’s disappearance and her resurgence, she remembers life with Curtis and Gus and  _ not  _ Wynonna, she remembers thinking she’d never see Wynonna ever again and she’d made peace with that, as much as she ever could. And she remembers the day she tugged Wynonna into a reluctant hug on the streets of Purgatory, the first step in mending the ever frayed fabric between them, and the feeling of her sister’s arms slipping around her, unsure but trying, seems ever present on her skin. Wynonna hugs her often now, real hugs with emotion and warmth and tightness, and this should shake away the awkwardness of years ago, the sting of when she wasn’t there at all, but it still doesn’t, not entirely— not enough to make Waverly’s own loneliness fade entirely. Nicole kisses her so much she loses count within the minutes, Nicole loves her in the kind of way she’s waited her whole life for and never really believed she’d be fortunate enough to experience, and yet she still feels the ache of her solitude in the same intensity she had when she was twenty one, when she was seventeen, when she was nine, when she was six. She’s starting to think she’ll never lose that feeling, and she’s starting to think she’s not meant to.

There’s so much to take in, no one knows how they do it. Nicole files police reports, shows up to work on time and never  _ once _ messes up the dates on the stamps or Nedley’s coffee orders. She looks at the dates, stares at them and tries to associate the numbers and letters with the current world that exists around her, and she finds no correlation.

There’s significance in every day, though. When Shorty’s death date rolls around, they’re all well aware; there’s an abnormal heaviness in the air that settles deep in Wynonna’s bonds, so strongly she worries something entirely new is coming. But then she remembers, and she then she can’t forget.

That day had felt like the beginning of the end, the first gust of wind that weakened the spark of a hope that was only set to dim even more between them all. That’s how Waverly had described it earlier, overly dramatized but phrased so prettily that Wynonna actively covered up her scoff with a nod of agreement in response.

Wynonna pours an extra drink at the bar— at  _ Shorty’s  _ bar— and sets it at the far edge of the counter where he always used to stand. She drinks slow and waits for Dolls to find her. He does, and he knows, after a few minutes, at least, why she’s here. He didn’t know Shorty, not in the slightest, and neither did Nicole, but they both see the way the sisters stare at the picture frame hung high on the wall; they stare for so long it’d be impossible not to know where their minds have gone. 

Nicole shifts, like she’s unsure if she’s intruding on a moment she shouldn’t be present for. Dolls stands unmoving by the opposite door and if the mood wasn’t so forlorn, he would have given Nicole a shrug and maybe a quirk of his eyebrows when her gaze had met his moments before, confused.

    “He was good to us,” Waverly says to no one in particular, and Nicole takes her words as a clue to come to her girlfriend’s side, slipping a comforting hand around her waist. Waverly melts into her touch and Nicole exhales. She looks up at the photo of Shorty and thinks about Waverly, thinks about Wynonna, thinks about the Earps, and all that they’ve endured. Her mind wanders and the ambience of the room stays the same; they feel like they’re waiting, though they’re not quite sure what for.

    “I was a dick that day,” Dolls says to Wynonna by way of greeting. She almost snorts at this— the man can’t say hello?— but when he leans against the opposite side of the bar counter, he folds his hands consciously close to his own body. He’s at a length where she could easily reach out for him, if she wanted to, and Wynonna knows he’s testing their boundaries, giving her space. 

    “You were,” she replies, getting the words out before her throat tightens. He’s so considerate, she thinks to herself, always calculated and always aware of what she needs and what she doesn’t. She slips her hands between his and pulls him closer so that his elbows rest on the table, and she marvels in how easy it is to dissipate tension between them.

    “I’m sorry,” Dolls says, and Wynonna has a feeling he knows he’s already forgiven anyways. Still, he says it.

    “Thanks,” she replies. She hesitates before saying what’s on her mind, but the silence is so stark around them that she just has to speak. 

    “You know, it’s easier to miss him than it is to miss Willa. He was always just...Shorty. No twisted sense of conscious, just a father figure with an affinity for beer and sticking tips in Waverly’s college fund whenever she wasn’t looking.”

Waverly overhears from across the room and smiles. “I always knew when he did that.” 

Almost immediately she frowns. “I never thanked him.”

Wynonna smiles sadly at her. 

    “He knew you knew,” is all she says, and it’s true. It feels like enough to say. It feels like there’s nothing else left to say, anyways.

They head home then, walking in the cold towards their separate cars. Wynonna complains about the cold under her breath as always, like she hasn’t lived in Purgatory for most of her life and therefore grown accustomed to the standard that is frigid weather. Nicole warms Waverly’s fingers between her own despite the mittens already covering her hands. Dolls says it’s been a long day, and it has. It always seems to be a long day. 

If it’s any consolation, Wynonna thinks they’re getting used to it. If nothing else, they’re getting through it.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on Tumblr under the same username, sweeterthankarma.


End file.
